JERUSALEM – Terrorist kidnappers abruptly released a CNN producer yesterday – after he helped them make a videotape urging his secretive Druze religious sect to stop supporting Israel.

“The Druze are part of the Palestinian people, and it is inappropriate for Druze youth to fight the war of the occupation against their own people,” TV journalist Riad Ali, 42, says on the tape.

Ali, speaking in Arabic, acknowledged that he, his father and other relatives had served in the Israeli army.

The producer, who is married with three kids, had been snatched in Gaza City nearly 24 hours earlier by gun-toting thugs who ambushed the vehicle in which he was traveling with CNN reporter Ben Wedeman.

He said he’d been well treated by his captors.

The producer yesterday remained mum about his captivity, except to say his kidnappers kept him handcuffed most of the time but treated him well, plying him with tea, coffee and cigarettes.

“They did not accuse me of anything,” Ali said. “They questioned me about my background as a member of the Druze community, and after they saw I had nothing to do with claims or concerns they had, they released me.”

He identified his abductors as members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant group linked to Palestinian chief Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.